Small builder builds big / One-of-a-kind homes going up one at a time in Oakland hills

Bill Burnett, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, July 28, 2002

All Greg Woehrle and his buddies had to do was hop over the fallen tree that blocked the overgrown path and hike up the hill a hundred yards or so. In a clearing, they would pop their beers, kick back and feast on the view.

"I would sit and think how incredible it would be to build something there someday," Woehrle said.

The rooftops of the fine hillside homes gave way to the flatlands of Oakland with its modest downtown and Lake Merritt. In the distance, but still close, it seemed, was San Francisco, like some type of Oz.

The year was 1983 and Woehrle was about to graduate from Piedmont High School. He had been coming to this pocket of land in the Oakland hills just above Piedmont for several years already, sometimes with his beer-drinking buddies, sometimes introducing a new girlfriend to the view. Often, he would come alone.

Today, Woehrle, 37, is building LaSalle Estates, a mini-subdivision of what is to be six megahomes on terraced, tree-shrouded lots behind an electric gate.

At prices of $3 million to $4 million, they are the most expensive newly built single-family homes in Oakland.

In 1997, Woehrle and a financial partner bought that prime clearing and some contiguous land, about 2 acres in all, for $800,000. Then they began the long approval process, including a challenge by a coalition of 64 neighbors. "They didn't know what I planned to do, and they wanted to make certain that I didn't build a bunch of tract homes right in their midst," Woehrle said. The land had room for eight good-size houses but Woehrle compromised and scaled back to six.

After soil tests, engineering reports and approval from the city, site preparation began. Clearing and grading the land and punching the short road in from LaSalle Street would cost nearly $2 million.

The neighbors needn't have feared a pox of tract homes.

OLD-WORLD CRAFTSMANSHIP

In May 2000, Noah and Sandra Doyle, with their daughter, Tatiana, moved into the first home of LaSalle Estates, a Georgian-style brick-faced house that at curbside looks expensive - but not overbearing. What goes unseen are the four stories and 8,000 square feet that ramble down the hill in back.

"We never thought we'd want to live in a home this big," Sandra Doyle said. "But once we saw it, we knew we'd like it. We loved the large rooms and the quality of the construction. We have old-world craftsmanship in a new home. That's unusual these days."

The Doyles, both UC Berkeley business school grads, moved from a newly built home in the upper Rockridge fire zone when they decided they needed more room and could afford it. Noah Doyle had just taken a startup dot-com business public.

He has since sold the business and now works as an independent consultant. He and his family are planning to stay put.

"I think we're pretty much settled," Sandra Doyle said, especially with their new daughter, Francesca, joining the family four months ago. "It's so nice that the first thing you hear in the morning is the birds."

It's not a problem living in what will be a construction zone for the next few years. "Actually, it's nice having the guys around," she said of the builders. "Any questions I have about the house, I can get answers right next door."

18 MONTHS TO BUILD

The second home, a 6,600-square-foot Tuscan villa-style plan, was completed in November 2000 and bought by Ray Wilkens, then CEO of Pac Bell, and his wife,

Lorena. That house is now for sale again because Wilkens has taken a new job in Texas. (See Open Homes, Page 21).

The third house, next door to the Doyles, is framed, roofed and sheeted, and ready for Sheetrock. It should be done in three months, Woehrle said. Lafayette architect Alan Sayles, who designed the Doyle and Wilkens homes, is working on plans for house No. 4.

While many custom homes are built in less than a year, it takes at least 18 months for Woehrle to build one of these houses, he said.

"That's because we create as we build. We don't follow the blueprint by rote, we use it as sort of a road map. As a house goes up, we rethink it. That takes time."

The house that's under construction was originally designed - and framed - with a tandem garage. "That just wasn't going to cut it for a house of this quality," Woehrle said.

The redesigned side-by-side garage required a new foundation and custom steel support beams. The change ended up taking about four months and costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Attention to detail and livability is evident in all of Woehrle's houses. They are framed with 2-by-6 lumber, not only on the exterior walls where more insulation can be added, but on many interior walls as well. "That gives us niches and adds extra depth to the doorways. When we add built-up molding, it enhances sense of depth."

A STEAM ROOM FOR 8

The finished homes have all the "wow" touches one would expect. Rare hardwood floors and custom cabinetry, elevators, built-in satellite and video systems, and richly paneled library hideaways are common. But sometimes, Woehrle turns opulence up a notch.

The master bath suite in the home under construction features not only the requisite jetted tub with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, but a fireplace and a steam room that seats eight. A football team could dress in the walk-in closet.

Woehrle is confident that even with the tumbling economy and with the market for multimillion-dollar homes drying up, his one-of-a-kind houses will sell. (The price of the Wilkens house was recently reduced to $3,450,000 from $3,950,000).

"These homes take a long time to build and they should take a long time to sell. Our market is sophisticated buyers, people who have already made their money and who have already lived in fine homes. And they're out there."

Woehrle jokes that he'd like to be able to afford to live in LaSalle Estates one day. "I really wanted to build something substantial here," he said, "something that will be around when I'm gone."

He likes to tell how members of Oakland's Kaiser family, former owners of the property, used to picnic in the clearing with the drop-dead view, and he says that during excavation in 1998, a gasoline company credit card from 1961 was unearthed. The name stamped on it was of a local boy, a student at Piedmont High - Clint Eastwood.